REMEMBERING: The Rev. Willie Howard

Former civil-rights leader dies

Published: Sunday, October 28, 2007 at 6:01 a.m.

Last Modified: Saturday, October 27, 2007 at 11:08 p.m.

HOUMA – In the fall of 1963, Nicholls State in Thibodaux was the last tax-supported university in Louisiana to resist racial integration, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s momentous Brown v. Board of Education decision nine years earlier.

By the end of the 1963-64 school year, however, 21 black students had been allowed to enroll and attend classes at the university without much of the violence and upheaval that accompanied integration at other schools in the South.

The Rev. Willie Howard, who died Monday after a bout with Alzheimer’s disease and other ailments, was among a determined group of local civil-rights advocates who succeeded in integrating Nicholls – seven years before Terrebonne and Southdown high schools merged to end segregation in Terrebonne Parish’s secondary schools.

Howard was a longtime pastor of St. Luke Baptist Church in the Waterproof community of Terrebonne Parish and had been retired for several years. After a funeral at St. Luke, he was buried Friday in the church cemetery.

Alfred Delahaye, a retired professor emeritus of journalism at Nicholls, credits Howard with playing a key role in selecting the students who applied for enrollment at the university during the tumultuous civil-rights era and shepherding them through the legal and social battles they faced in a racially charged atmosphere.

“I would say it was certainly significant, and I think he belongs in history,” Delahaye said. “Not only was he one of several who brought about integration, but he saw to it that it went peacefully.”

In a history of Nicholls authored by Delahaye, Howard advises civil-rights leaders planning the Nicholls integration effort against selecting “rambunctious” students.

“You’re going there to learn there, not to run the place,” Howard is quoted as saying.

Cooperation between civil-rights leaders and school officials, including then university President Vernon Galliano, helped avoid most of the ugliness that came with integration elsewhere.

“It went unbelievably smoothly,” Delahaye said.

Persuaded to accept the presidency of the Houma chapter of the NAACP at age 26, Wallace was also instrumental in getting C.C. Miller, then superintendent of Terrebonne public schools, to agree to provide a bus for the black students attending Nicholls.

Free transportation for public university students was a common practice in Louisiana at the time, Delahaye said.

<p>HOUMA – In the fall of 1963, Nicholls State in Thibodaux was the last tax-supported university in Louisiana to resist racial integration, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s momentous Brown v. Board of Education decision nine years earlier.</p><p>By the end of the 1963-64 school year, however, 21 black students had been allowed to enroll and attend classes at the university without much of the violence and upheaval that accompanied integration at other schools in the South.</p><p>The Rev. Willie Howard, who died Monday after a bout with Alzheimer’s disease and other ailments, was among a determined group of local civil-rights advocates who succeeded in integrating Nicholls – seven years before Terrebonne and Southdown high schools merged to end segregation in Terrebonne Parish’s secondary schools.</p><p>Howard was a longtime pastor of St. Luke Baptist Church in the Waterproof community of Terrebonne Parish and had been retired for several years. After a funeral at St. Luke, he was buried Friday in the church cemetery.</p><p>Alfred Delahaye, a retired professor emeritus of journalism at Nicholls, credits Howard with playing a key role in selecting the students who applied for enrollment at the university during the tumultuous civil-rights era and shepherding them through the legal and social battles they faced in a racially charged atmosphere.</p><p>I would say it was certainly significant, and I think he belongs in history, Delahaye said. Not only was he one of several who brought about integration, but he saw to it that it went peacefully.</p><p>In a history of Nicholls authored by Delahaye, Howard advises civil-rights leaders planning the Nicholls integration effort against selecting rambunctious students.</p><p>You’re going there to learn there, not to run the place, Howard is quoted as saying.</p><p>Cooperation between civil-rights leaders and school officials, including then university President Vernon Galliano, helped avoid most of the ugliness that came with integration elsewhere.</p><p>It went unbelievably smoothly, Delahaye said.</p><p>Persuaded to accept the presidency of the Houma chapter of the NAACP at age 26, Wallace was also instrumental in getting C.C. Miller, then superintendent of Terrebonne public schools, to agree to provide a bus for the black students attending Nicholls.</p><p>Free transportation for public university students was a common practice in Louisiana at the time, Delahaye said.</p><p>Once Nicholls got integrated, Willie Howard figured the black kids need to have free school-bus transportation to Nicholls too, Delahaye said.</p><p>Miller initially balked at providing a bus for such a small number of students, according to Delahaye.</p><p>In that case, Howard reportedly said, the black students would have to ride with the white Nicholls students.</p><p>At that point, Miller agreed to a bus, Delahaye said, according to an interview he did with Howard for the book.</p><p>Within a few semesters, however, white and black students were riding buses to Nicholls together.</p><p>Ordained in 1969, Howard earned a bachelor’s degree in theology 41 years later, completing a program at the Houma extension of the United Theological Bible College, based in Monroe.</p><p> He didn’t like being in the forefront all the time; he liked organizing, said Terrell Turner, who married Howard in 1968, though the couple later divorced.</p><p>Though she remained friends to the end with her ex-husband, Turner said Howard could arouse strong reactions in people.</p><p>He was a fun-loving person, Turner said. He really knew just what to say to set you off.</p><p>She noted Howard could always find the right words to get back on someone’s good side again, however.</p><p>A high-school dropout who worked as welder at local shipyards, Howard later completed the adult-education program at C.M. Washington High in Thibodaux, earning a high-school equivalency degree.</p><p>His involvement in the fight for equal opportunity in education for blacks was a direct result of his own brush with the dearth of options for the uneducated.</p><p>Most of them referred to him as a radical because nothing was integrated at the time, Turner said.</p><p>Her ex-husband was often unwelcome at black bars during the tense integration years, she said, because other patrons were afraid Howard would attract violence from segregationists.</p><p>It reached a point where he couldn’t sit in a lounge because the people were afraid someone would throw a bomb in there, she said. He made a lot of enemies, but soon those enemies became friends.</p><p>His social works didn’t end with the passing of the civil-rights movement.</p><p>In 1983, Howard launched a jail ministry that still continues in Terrebonne, Turner said.</p><p>In his interview with Howard for the book, Delahaye said the minister struck him as a very pleasant, civic-minded individual.</p><p>One of his quotes in Delahaye’s book suggests a man who was interested in getting involved with the fight for equal rights, even though he lacked the very education he was advocating.</p><p>I didn’t know what I was doing, Howard was quoted as saying in the book. But I did know what I was getting into.</p><p>Staff writer Robert Zullo can be reached at 850-1150 or robert.zullo@houmatoday.com.</p>